Good handwavium vs. bad fake science

[mrissa]

I was talking to a friend about the TV show Eureka (which I really like, by the way, especially in the first part of S3), and I was saying that they mostly stayed on the side of "good handwavium" for me rather than "bad fake science." She, quite reasonably, asked how I drew that line. I think one of the main points for me is that if the science fictional element is not particularly plausible with what we currently know, vagueness about the technical details is a feature, not a bug. Writing books and classes on writing often teach us to be more specific in our writing so that it's more vivid, but sometimes you don't want it to be vivid, because you don't want the reader (or viewer) to have a vivid picture of why exactly this will not work and is in fact ridiculous to even contemplate.

There are, of course, things that cannot be vague enough to be anything but bad science. "The electromagnetic force doesn't work any more!" Well, if the electroweak force suddenly stopped working, we would all die more or less immediately. How do you think your neurons work? How do you think ionic bonds work, for heaven's sake? So you need to actually do the research and find out that building a Faraday cage is what you want rather than the destruction of the universe as we know it--simply saying, "I dunno, it just works that way," is not enough there.

Also, if you have something with problems, listing the problems in character conversation can sometimes get you through. "It took us years to figure out how to deal with the momentum problem," a scientist can say casually, shaking her head at the amount of effort required, or, "The toxicity of the byproduct nearly had us beat," and there you go, you have acknowledged that this is a problem, you have not had to become a Nobel-prize-winning scientist to write your story, on you go. (I mean, if you feel like becoming a Nobel-prize-winning scientist, that's totally fine, and don't let me stop you. I just feel that it shouldn't be a requirement.)

Anybody else have some ideas about writing good handwavium vs. bad fake science? Striking examples in either direction?

Comments

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I think the role of good technobabble is to provide you with a semblance of specificity while not ensnaring you in bad science. Make up something about the Kleinoff force and I can just pretend that's a force we haven't discovered yet; start going on about electromagnetism and I'll be comparing it to what I recall of AP physics.

On the other hand, making technobabble sound good is not an easy thing.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

That was just what I was going to say, using Bujold's jumpthingies and the Necklin rods in her Vorkosigan books. Falling Free has plot-related handwavium, even.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

The WORST bad fake science I have ever seen was an episode of Torchwood where they foiled a DNA-seeking bomb (http://www.politedissent.com/archives/1887) by injecting somebody's heart with other people's blood. We already know this wouldn't work NOW. I hate science that gets stupider. (Post apocalyptic worldbuilding gets a pass here.)

What especially gets me is how they created this problem themselves. It's not like we *have* DNA seeking bombs that a reasonable person needs to account for them not using. At the point where you realize you have sweet bugger all to handle this threat, why don't you just go back and pencil in a different threat? All they really needed was a targetted attack and a last minute rescue. Have him wearing a tracking device that can't be removed, and they can short it out with an EMP! But I digress...

What is most important to me is internal consistency. With all due respect to Joss Whedon, who is otherwise the god of my idolatry, nothing makes me crazier than "the magic moves at the speed of the plot".

As a work around, I am also fond of the POV character who simply doesn't know why it works, only how. I could not explain an internal cumbustion engine on a bet; I am good with believing even more technologically sophisticated societies could get even more specialized and/or even more into "no user serviceable parts within". This only goes so far, of course, but sometimes that is far enough.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Uff da, that does sound bad.

It reminds me of the bit of Charles Sheffield where they were checking reproductive cells to make sure some changes had gone that deep by having men provide a sample of semen and women provide...a sample of menstrual blood. *headdesk headdesk headdesk* When there was no particular reason they had to be reproductive cells except that he'd said so. *headdesk headdesk*

And yes, "I dunno, I turn the key and it goes, as long as I remember to put gas in it, and, uh, have the fella do whatever he does with the oil change..." is fairly functional for some types of character.

[zwol.livejournal.com]

Have you read Daniel Pinkwater's Borgel? There's a hilarious conversation where the teenage protagonist demands to know how the time-and-space-traveling car works, and Borgel has no idea. "Has it got warp drive?" "It's got Hydramatic. It says so right there on the steering wheel."

[numinicious.livejournal.com]

Uh, sorry to butt in, but oh my god, that is the stupidest science plot I have ever read.

I was going to get into Torchwood, I told myself. Not anymore. I would throw the TV out the window.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

I love Torchwood in many ways and for many reasons, but science is not its strong suit.

[zwol.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansible mentions my personal favorite example of this. The closest LeGuin ever comes to explaining how the ansible works is in The Dispossessed when Shevek has a flash of inspiration and realizes that (from vague memory) "Ainsetain had been right after all, but had lacked the [mathematical] tools to prove it"... Shevek, having those tools, can then go beyond that theory. That's totally fine. That is how science marches on.

Card borrows the word for Ender's Game: also totally fine, especially with the shout-out ("somebody dredged the name out of an old book"). But then he has to go and start talking about splitting pi mesons, and I have to resist the urge to tear the page out, write QUARK CONFINEMENT next to it in red ink, and mail it to him.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Oddly, Card was in my head as one of the good instances. I don't remember him saying anything about pi mesons; I just remember him saying "this all works because of a particle called the philote," and since a philote sounded like a plausible but invented particle, I was very willing to go along with anything he extrapolated about it. But apparently he erred in saying too much about where the particle came from?

[zwol.livejournal.com]

The philotes themselves were fine -- a little on the "do everything particle" side for my preferences, but no worse than Star Trek that way. It was only the specific mention of pi mesons, which are real, and have well-understood properties not consistent with the story, that I had a problem with.

[brooksmoses]

It occurs to me that one of the distinctions is whether the real science is gotten right. "The momentum problem" and "the toxicity of the byproduct" are things that (presuming context) are actual science. "The electromagnetic force doesn't work" is not.

Continuing the line of thought, a reasonable rule is to stop the details before you get outside of actual science, inasmuch as is possible. Put a big fuzzy blob over the parts where the real science stops applying, and don't explain it except in "there's a big fuzzy blob here where the miracle occurs" sort of way; explain, instead, bits of the real science outside it.

Corrolary: If you don't understand the real science behind things that you're explaining, don't explain them. If this leaves you with nothing at all that you can explain, either learn something or write a story about something else. (Note that "about something else" can be about something else in the same world that doesn't directly interact with any of the science. But if you take this route, you must be fierce about not explaining any of the science.)

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I did this in a game once. My character was supposed to be a supergenius doctor, and one of the early things I had her cure was a particular (female) muscular dystrophy variant. I looked up stuff on Wikipedia until I understood that the general cause of this variant was the inactivation of the healthy copy of the gene due to heterochromatin packaging, and then proceded to handwave that she'd found some way to reactivate that gene.

Do I know what heterochromatin is? Hell no. And I haven't the slightest idea how muscular dystrophy operates on a chemical level. But I got sufficient words to sound informed, without having to make up anything involving real science.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

In FRP, when the players ask something I don't know, the standard answer is "How are you going to find out?"

[numinicious.livejournal.com]

Things I have learned from Life: when in doubt, always build a Faraday cage.

I mean, if you feel like becoming a Nobel-prize-winning scientist, that's totally fine, and don't let me stop you. I just feel that it shouldn't be a requirement.
Well, maybe not nobel-prize winning, but a lot of the time I think this should be a requirement. Not for most scifi, but Richard Preston definitely needs a basic bio textbook to the head. Hard. Michael Crichton did it correctly, people, follow his example. First learn the subject, then write about it, if you're going to be so specific and actually attempt to explain the science.

Otherwise the scientists will laugh at you. Loudly.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Um. Are you familiar with Michael Crichton's intellectual dishonesty regarding climate change and pulling quotes selectively and/or with ellipses to make it sound like papers are saying exactly the opposite of what they're saying? If not, I'd be very careful about giving him as a positive example these days, or people will think that's what you're endorsing.

[numinicious.livejournal.com]

No, actually, I was not aware of that. Thank you for telling me.

I was actually just referring to the fictional novels written by Crichton. The books I've read by him that involved zomgActualScience!! seemed to be well-written and followed a method similar to what brooksmoses described; i.e. there was science, and the science described was realistic, and the stuff that was beyond current science was handwaved and fuzzed over quite effectively. I don't recall any books in which he actually, er, cites papers or whatnot.

And for clarification: that behavior is definitely not what I'm endorsing, re: intellectual dishonesty & such.

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

He does it in his fiction, alas. I read Prey right after reading the relevant literature on nanotechnology, and I damn near threw it against the wall. (I would have, too, but I really wanted to find out what happened next. Which was his main strength as a writer.) The science he was citing actually completely disproved his claims--beter to make something up entirely.

[numinicious.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised! Perhaps I'm reading the wrong Crichton books. Or the right ones. Or maybe I'm just not at all versed in the field that he happens to be referencing in his books.

I'll have to re-read them with a more critical eye, in this case.

Eureka

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I find the science in Eureka dumb dumb dumb. But, even more so, I am bothered by the dumbness of the social science: how the town is organized, how the people behave, how Global Dynamics is organized and behaved, how Henry is an expert at everything, how science problems are always solved in a flash of insight, how solutions always reverse the entire problem and never have side effects, etc, etc, etc.

B

Re: Eureka

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And yet if I recall correctly, you recently spoke well of Anathem, which is one of my recent terrible horrible no good very bad examples. So clearly not all techniques for this come out the same on the reader's/viewer's end for every reader/viewer.

Re: Eureka

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Yes, I thought Stephenson got it all pretty exactly right in that book.

B

Re: Eureka

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I suppose now that I think about it, I can poke holes in a lot of stuff -- but I think a good story will cover for a lot of sloppy science (as evidenced by this example).

B

Re: Eureka

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That's exactly what I mean: different readers/viewers come in with a different idea of what elements make a story good enough to cover sloppy science.

Re: Eureka

[numinicious.livejournal.com]

Tell me more about your thoughts on Anathem, because I was going to pick it up again and then remembered that I couldn't get past the intro.

Re: Eureka

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

My book post at the time:

Neal Stephenson, Anathem. Do you like portmanteau words like the title? (anthem + anathema) If so, this is the book for you. If not...um. The thing is, I felt that Stephenson thought he was being clever significantly more often than I thought he was being clever. It was not to the point of a Jasper Fforde novel, where I wanted to shout, "Oh, shut up!" throughout the narrative. But I wanted to intone, "har de har, clever you," a great deal more often than I wanted to laugh, reading this. Also there is a terrible, terrible Dischism in the mid-800s...oh, such a bad Dischism, uff da. I went to see what the reviews of this were saying on Amazon, and nobody seemed to have gotten around to saying, "Not all that deep, actually." Many of the people who liked it were talking about how it would make you think, and if you didn't like thinking, you wouldn't like it. It turns out that was not my problem. My problem is that none of the thinking struck me as particularly "upsightful" on the topics at hand -- certainly nothing I hadn't seen done better elsewhere -- and after 900 pages, you want better than a couple of bits of not-too-badness. Also there were times when interesting worldbuilding was sacrificed to "trenchant" social commentary: yes, lots of people in the US today wear sports gear-inspired oversized clothing and drink lots of soda! How insightful to notice and draw parallels in this alternate world! That'll certainly teach those of us who think that...um...well, cadithial, maybe. He will read it and think, "Curse my Mountain Dew! This has made me think!"

...or else not. Disappointing. And all the more so because it was 900 pages, and he spent all the time it took him to write these 900 pages on this and not on something better. Not that this was horrible. (Wouldn't you like to see what I'd have said if it was horrible!) But for 900 pages from the author of the Baroque Cycle, I wanted more than not-horrible. Considerably more.

And then I made this post (http://mrissa.livejournal.com/573588.html) as well.

And that wasn't even about the characters. (What characters?...oh.)

Re: Eureka

[numinicious.livejournal.com]

I think I read both posts at the time, but I needed a good refresher, especially re: what this post is about.

So, looking back on the old post, it seems Stephenson handled the physics poorly, which was what I couldn't remember. I remembered quite well that I disliked his method of worldbuilding, which I recall as being unnecessarily pretentious and all "if you can't understand my effed up method of creating languages, you are too stupid to read my books". That turned me off. Again, I couldn't make it past the inflated introduction, much less get to the actual book.

According to you he also wasn't that good at the social commentary. But I was curious how he did the science-y part (since this post was about Science!!!!!), and you have answered my questions.

I'm gonna spend my money on... um. Other stuff. !Anathem.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

The lesson from Eureka (and various Pratchett) is that if you're self-aware of your ridiculousness and do it hilariously you can get away with whatever you want. I'm thinking of the particle decelerator, for instance. Although I still like my explanation* better than theirs.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah, I did not have the sense that anybody was supposed to believe in the particle decelerator. That was not the point of it.

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

I started out feeling as you do about Eureka, although I cringed every time they got near neuroscience. By the end of Season 2, though, I had decided they were magicians who solved problems by finding the right words to describe them, and the only suspense in a given episode was whether they would create a sufficiently large bundle of technobabble in time. There didn't seem to be any underlying rules about what could be done, other than that sufficiently technical-sounding descriptions led swiftly to solutions.

I draw my own technobabble rules from the example of C.J. Cherryh and Robert Heinlein. For any made-up technology, you need to know:

1) What it can (and can't) do
2) What resources it needs to work
3) One way it can break
4) One inconvenient side effect

You do not need to pretend you have the manual. If you had the manual, you would be making a lot more money.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'm going to hang this list over my desk. :)

[thoughtdancer.livejournal.com]

Me too... and I write science fantasy (ie, fantasy in a modern, realistic context).

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I would call that contemporary fantasy, and have science fantasy be the stuff with overt SF/futuristic elements mixed in with the magic, so I'm glad you clarified so we weren't talking at cross-purposes due to different definitions.

[joeboo-k.livejournal.com]

In regards to the good handwavium in Eureka, it works for me because the show is so very much not about the bad science in any way whatsoever except that it occasionally advances the narrative. For me, Eureka is almost exclusively about the characters and the character interactions. Period. When they get bad science and good handwavium that doesn't offend my very non-scientific brain, so much the better.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

The biggest thing for me is that it needs to be internally consistent (applies to fantasy magic systems, too). I've just been rereading an old Fantastic Four collection from the 1960s, and OK, it's a comic book, and I'm totally OK with "We will now use the neutron all-killium phaser on you!" in that context, but it really sucks when they contradict themselves within a few panels.

[rmnilsson.livejournal.com]

There was an interesting article at overthinkingit.com about technobabble as a form of Deus Ex Machina. It's in the context of Doctor Who, which goes through handwavium by the bucketload. It's maybe a little tangential to this topic, because it's about the relationship between the use of technobabble and the theme of the story being told, not the quality of the technobabble. But I found it interesting nonetheless...

http://www.overthinkingit.com/2009/06/17/the-how-of-who/

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think technobabble definitely can be a deus ex machina, but I don't think it has to be if it's consistent throughout--sort of the King Triton analogy they were using.

[evangoer.livejournal.com]

See also quantum flux. :) http://www.theonion.com/content/news/sci_fi_writer_attributes?utm_source=a-section

[rmnilsson.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I know you were getting more at the content of the handwavium, but for me it does depend at least in part on how it's used in the story.

I also think it's something where it's ok to have something I don't understand, but when the author contradicts specific things I know, that's when I start having problems. So I've been OK with stories that bothered my Physicist or Biologist friends, but I have problems with stories that mess up the Psychology or Neuroscience.

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

My favorite will always be the meteorology? water? evaporation? fail of the yasmine galenorm I was reading where the girl from faerie complains that the rain here is so weak, not like the mineral-rich rains of Faerie.

And of course, the differences between Farscape's approach to language--the babelfish-like 'here, we'll inject you with translator microbes') vs stargate's "we will never mention what a coincidence it is that in 10 seasons of the show, there have only been like three different languages (english, egyptian, and norse.)" annoys me.